#PowerPlatformTip 30: 'PowerApps: Code Review'

TL;DR: Check app quality in three steps: App checker in Power Apps Studio while you build, solution checker on the solution before you deploy, and the PowerCAT Power Apps Review Tool for a structured review with a checklist, a score and a grade.

💡 Challenge

Ensuring Power Apps solutions are high-quality, performant, and accessible is hard without the right tools to measure them.

✅ Solution

Combine the built-in checks with a structured review:

🔸 App checker (Power Apps Studio) - live results for formulas, runtime, rules, accessibility and performance while you build.

🔸 Solution checker (make.powerapps.com) - a static analysis of the whole unmanaged solution against best practice rules, including canvas app rules, flows (via flow checker) and Dataverse components.

🔸 Power Apps Review Tool (PowerCAT, formerly “Code Review Tool”) - a review app with a customizable checklist of best practices, the App checker results, app settings, a code viewer, and a score with grade.

🔧 How It’s Done

1. App checker while you build. 🔸 Open the app in Power Apps Studio and select App checker. Fix formula errors first, then the accessibility and performance hints.

2. Solution checker before you deploy. 🔸 In make.powerapps.com, open Solutions, select … next to the unmanaged solution > Solution checker > Run. 🔸 Open the report with View results or download it as Excel. Each issue has a category (for example Performance, Accessibility), a severity from Critical to Informational and a link to the guidance. Canvas app rules include app-formula-issues-high, app-reduce-screen-controls and app-include-accessible-label.

3. Structured review with the Power Apps Review Tool. 🔸 Download the ArchitectureReview solution from the microsoft/powerapps-tools repository. It needs the Power CAT Creator Kit core solution and PCF components enabled in the environment. 🔸 Create a review from a solution file, an .msapp file or an app in the environment. Pass or fail each checklist pattern, add comments for the maker and link code findings to a pattern. The results page shows the score, the grade and the failed patterns by category and severity.

🎉 Result

Every app gets the same three checks before it goes live: no open formula errors in App checker, no critical solution checker issues, and a documented review with a score you can compare from release to release.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 Detailed insight into the quality of your solutions.

🔸 Encourages continuous improvement and standardization.

🔸 Promotes efficient and accessible apps.

⚠️ Good to Know

The Power Apps Review Tool lives in Microsoft’s “Unsupported PowerApps Tools & Apps” repository: it’s free and published by the PowerCAT team, but comes without Microsoft support. App checker and solution checker are part of the product. In Managed Environments, admins can enforce solution checker so that critical violations warn or block the import.

🛠️ FAQ

1. What’s a good target score for the Power Apps Review Tool?

There is no official threshold. Run a review on two or three of your best apps, use their score as your team’s baseline and raise it step by step. More important than the number: no failed patterns with high severity.

2. How often should I run code reviews on my Power Apps?

App checker continuously while you build, solution checker before every deployment, and a Review Tool review before major releases or when an app changes owner.

3. Can these tools fix issues automatically?

No. App checker, solution checker and the Review Tool identify issues and link to guidance, the fixes are made in the app.

🔗 Related Tips

🔸 #PowerPlatformTip 134: ‘Optimize Canvas Apps with YAML’ - a concrete performance fix likely to raise the score this tool reports.

🔸 #PowerPlatformTip 131: ‘ForAll & Patch Optimization in PowerApps’ - another common performance issue the Code Review Tool flags.